Dark Powers
by The Cush
Summary: Years after escaping a nightmarish dimension, a ranger and his comrades must face the demons they thought they left behind


Chapter 1  
  
Moonlight flowed over the city of Waterdeep, coating it in a soft silvery patina, lending a serene quality to the normally bustling city. At night, most Waterdhavians slept, and slept well. Some did not sleep, toiling away in activities both legal and extralegal. In the Kasandre estate, one man slept uneasily, the same way he had every night for the last four years.  
"You didn't save me," snarled a pompous voice in the man's dreams. "You were a pathetic excuse for a warrior, a coward, and ultimately a failure."  
The man moaned softly in his sleep, the fine silvery hair on his head spilled out over the pillow, his brow starting to bead with sweat.  
"You didn't save us," echoed two small voices, like those of children. "You heard our screams and you followed us down and you watched us die."  
Another moan, louder, more pained and forlorn than the last. His head began to thrash from side to side as the nightmare continued.  
"You failed me," declared a gravelly voice. "I gave you the tools and the knowledge and you wasted them. You failed in the task that you knew in your heart you were made for."  
"No. . . no more. . . please. . ." the man whimpered. The woman laying next to him woke up, turning to look at him, the same look of sadness and confusion that stole across her face every night about this time.  
"I trusted you."  
"We needed you."  
"I despise you."  
"GODS HELP ME!" the man shrieked as he awoke, shaking violently, drenched in sweat. The woman threw her arms around him, holding on to him tightly, whispering in his ear soothingly.  
"Kennic, shush. Shhhhhhhh! All's well, love. Please, please hush!"  
He puts his arms around her, crying silently as he shook in her arms. He knew that the sleeping potion he'd drunk earlier would fail. He knew he was going to wake up screaming again, terrifying his wife. He knew she would again try to ask him what it was that tortured him as he slept, what demons claimed dominion over his dreams night after night. And he knew that once again, he could not tell her. There was an obstacle in his mind, as cunningly laid as a deadfall. He knew he couldn't step past that boundary, not without injuring himself in the process, not without destroying everything he'd spent the last four years building for himself.  
"It's over," she whispered. "You're safe."  
Kennic knew better than that. * * *  
Once upon a time, a human ranger named Kennic Silverthorn lost his way without ever noticing it until it was too late. He stumbled across as motley a group of adventurers as had ever been recorded in story or song. He journeyed with them through realms unknown and survived horrors best left undescribed. He buried most of his companions along the way, but did come home with three of them. Before he began his strange journey, he hunted the undead, and did so without fear. Along the way, he learned fear, and turned it into fury, but the monsters never stopped scaring him. And after he had returned, far wealthier and wiser and slightly more scarred than when he left, he and his comrades settled in Waterdeep where they went their separate ways, made good livings in their chosen careers, and earned great fame for themselves. Yet nobody had ever pried the secret of where he had been or where he'd gotten such large amounts of treasure from his lips, or any of his other companions' as well. For although Kennic was thirty-two years old according to Dalereckoning, he looked and sounded and fought like a man fifteen years older. He'd been incredibly fast and strong when he first lost his way, and he was still fast and still strong, but he was quite obviously well seasoned. Many a man who'd faced him in a duel and lived to tell about it said they could see something in his eyes, those eyes that looked like polished chips of obsidian set into pearls. The look of a predator that knew it would eat well that night. The fire of a warrior who'd beaten tougher opponents than the one in front of him.  
Men age, dwarves age, and elves ultimately pass out of existence, but secrets remain even after the last man to know the truth stops drawing breath. In a way, Kennic knew his secrets would still exist after his death, waiting like the traps inside the ancient tombs he'd delved long ago for somebody to stumble over them. And like those old traps, those secrets might well kill the discoverer. * * *  
Opening his door slowly, Rigadorn Skullthumper looked up at the visitor, then grinned as he beheld the face of Kennic Silverthorn. The cleric ushered him in, leading him quickly into a handsomely decorated study, then yanked on a bell pull. A young woman came out and bowed primly.  
"Tea, please." The maid bowed again and left the study. Rigadorn smiled at Kennic. "Rank has such wonderful privleges, don't you think?"  
"I never was one for privlege, Rigadorn. Why do you think I only visit Waterdeep?" Kennic tried to keep a smile on his face, but the dwarf could see his friend's uneasiness.  
"You're still dreaming?" he asked gently  
"You're still praying?" replied the ranger, the smile on his face genuine but slightly bitter.  
"Aye, lad, and Moradin hears my prayers daily. Though he doesn't answer them all. He knows I've prayed for you to stop having these nightmares, and it seems that prayer will remain unanswered for some time yet."  
The tea was set out and Rigadorn poured two cups. "What are you doing back in Waterdeep, Kennic?"  
"About that time of year when we come into Waterdeep, spend some time with Nereya's family. Any luxury items we need we purchase here, bolster the stocks with some vegetables and salted meats we can't get from the wild, catch up with old friends."  
Rigadorn smiled into his tea. "And no doubt spend some time looking for yet another cure to your nightmares."  
"I've tried the divine and the arcane and outright fraudulent, old friend. If anything, those seem to make it worse. For the life of me, I cannot figure out what it is that's wrong. How long were we there?"  
"By Dalereckoning, two years. By the local calendars, perhaps fifteen years, perhaps twenty. Maybe not even Moradin knows, and if Moradin doesn't know, then maybe none of the gods know."  
"And if gods don't know, then us poor mortals are really in trouble." Kennic's tone was quickly becoming acidic. "I had a very bad one last night, after a draught from a Thayan trader. He swore it would put me into a deep restful sleep. I'm still deciding on whether or not to beat a refund from his tattooed hide."  
"Doubtful you'd get it back. Either way, you'd still have the nightmares." Rigadorn poured another cup of tea for himself. "What was it last night?"  
"It started with Bowen." A sharp bitter laugh escaped Kennic's lips. "Self-righteous bastard's still judging me. His flesh was burning, kept telling me how much of a failure I was."  
Rigadorn only nodded. Kennic and Bowen had met up with him and the others in the same town, and unless they were both too busy fighting others, they were at each other's throats. Bowen had been a paladin of Lathander, but one that had been perhaps a little too zealous, one that walked dangerously close to the edge of what his faith permitted him. He'd been pompous and arrogant, and his end had been particuarly messy. Kennic had saved Rigadorn's life that time, but there hadn't been time to save Bowen or another of their companions. The incident still gave Rigadorn the shivers to think how close he'd come to perishing with the paladin. Apparently, it was still feeding Kennic's nightmares.  
"Then it was the children, those two kids that went down into the sewers. I saw them with their throats ripped open and their jaws hanging open slack, and they still accused me of watching them die."  
Again, Rigadorn nodded. Another bad episode, tracking a pack of ghouls through a sewer beneath a large city. Kennic was the best tracker for the job, and ghouls were no great challenge to him. In this realm, amended Rigadorn. They had ambushed Kennic, their paralytic touch blocking him at the mouth of the sewer tunnel, unable to help the children, unable to let his comrades wiggle past. That event had ultimately cost several lives, and the destruction of a small section of city sewer lines when they fell through the floor of the sewer chamber into the underground lake beneath the city. Kennic didn't mind the swim, but Rigadorn had been a little leery of any standing water bigger than a foot bath for many months afterwards.  
"And after the children?" prodded Rigadorn.  
"Mather. The hunter. Telling me I'd failed him."  
"Now that is a bare-faced lie, Kennic Silverthorn, and you damned well know it!" Rigadorn growled. "You fought and bled and faced down things that no man had even dared to stand against before. You beat back the darkness in that place, we all did."  
"But we didn't finish the job, did we?" Kennic countered tartly.  
"No, but could we have finished the job if we were to do the same things here? Kennic, a man can only do so much in his time on this world, or any world. Doesn't matter if that man is human or dwarf or elf or something else. You can't save the whole world, lad. That world or this one, you can't do it single handed. And all of us fighting together could not have saved that place." The cleric looked at Kennic with a mixture of sympathy and severity. "Best we could have hoped for is to have made that place a little better than when we found it. And I believe we did so. I don't think we would have been allowed to return here permanently if we hadn't."  
Kennic gulped his tea. "Who says we've been allowed to stay here permanently? For all we know, we're just being held in reserve, until the next disaster demands our presence."  
"Now that is an unpleasant thought." Rigadorn refilled both cups.  
"Unpleasant, yes. But not impossible." Kennic stared into his tea. "Have you ever wondered why we were there, Rigadorn?"  
Rigadorn closed his eyes. "Every day that I was there. Every day since I came home. I reflect on it at least once a day, turning it over like some dark jewel in my mind, asking myself what greater purpose we accomplished, what greater power we served."  
"You don't think Moradin was there."  
"I know He wasn't, Kennic. The fire one feels when they devote themselves to the service of a god, that warm power that faith provides, I never felt it the entire time we were there. It always returned the few times we came back here to Faêrun, but it left whenever the mists claimed us."  
"And that doesn't bother you?"  
"It bothered me constantly, but I grew to accept the fact that that place was truly godforsaken."  
"I don't think so. I think whatever that place was, there were gods there of some sort. Dark, cruel, distant gods. I saw something yesterday that got me thinking about our time there."  
"What was that?"  
"Some children had gathered up some stones and made a simple maze. Then the turned a beetle loose inside it. The maze had no exits, no entrance, and every few minutes the children would rearrange a wall, or trap the beetle inside a section, then pluck it out and put it back where it started. I chased the kids off, then let the beetle go."  
"Very nice of you."  
Shaking his head, Kennic continued, "I knew exactly how the situation feels, even if that beetle wasn't smart enough to know."  
Rigadorn studied his friend closely, perhaps closer than he had in the long time that he had known the ranger. Even when things were at their worst, Kennic was simply too stubborn to give up. He could plan ahead, and usually planned for the absolute worst possible situation. He was relentless when his passions were up, and woe befell the man, beast, or demon that crossed him. The dark deeds he'd seen had frightened him beyond all measure, but it had eventually fueled a fury that had ultimately carried him and his friends out of that place. Now, Rigadorn began to seriously consider the possibility that those terrors may have done more than just piss him off.  
Kennic sighed and closed his eyes. "I can still feel it, you know. That place. There's some sort of connection there, a mark, almost like a scar that forms around an arrowhead."  
"Nonsense," replied Rigadorn, not entirely believing himself as he said it.  
"I feel it calling to me. Faintly, but it's all twisted and distorted. And I think it wants us back, Rigadorn. For how long, I don't know. For what purpose, I can't say. But I think it wants us back, and I believe it will come to claim us soon." Kennic opened his eyes, locking them on Rigadorn.  
"I am afraid, Rigadorn. Down to my soul." 


End file.
